After an amazing time in Botswana (see here), I continued to my favorite park of the bunch, Mana Pools. I’ll keep this blogpost very short since the images really speak for themselves. There were so many great moments,
that I could make this blog post a book. I will spare you that one though. One of my personal favorites are the skimmer pictures. The birds are so rare and it’s not easy to photograph them. So it was really satisfying to be able to capture them in this beautiful morning light while they skimmed through the water. I went there several mornings, really early. Sometimes they weren’t there and sometimes I didn’t get much out of it, because they are fast and you need that exact right moment. I kept on going until I finally got what I wanted. Hope you will enjoy them too!
There is one story that I do want to tell, so make sure you scroll down for that!
There’s one moment that was pretty exciting for me, so I’ll tell you this one story. The wild dogs are always amazing to watch, since they are never boring to me. Sometimes playing around, going for a hunt or a drink and even when they are resting they are fun to watch. Such social animals. As if you get what they are all about.
One day we knew they were around and hoped they would head our way. So we sat down and waited. All of a sudden we notice a warthog totally unaware of the dogs a bit further. The poor creature walked exactly the direction they might come from. The moment they discovered him, it was an explosion of sounds and running and everything went crazy fast. They obviously went for it and you can imagine that was the exact thing the poor warthog did. He ran for his life and didn’t care at all I was right in his escape route. I was totally excited too and laying on the ground to get a good shot out of it. So right before he got to me I had to ‘ninja roll’ aside not to be thrown over by him. Adrenaline I tell you! And probably not only for me. Miraculously the warthog made it and escaped his pursuers. It was absolutely fascinating to witness from the ultimate frontline. Literally this time!
Thank you so much for sharing. Mana is such a stunning place. I haven’t been there recently since I live in the Cape, but your pictures brought back such special memories!